Nosema Ceranae

[POPZ]

Gavin - thanks for posting that article. I have googled Nosema Ceranae to try and get more information, particularly regarding symptoms in a colony and treatment. It seems that it is generally considered to be a really serious problem. There is little advice on treatment but it has been suggested that the most effective control of Nosema Ceranae is the antibiotic fumagillin as recommended for Nosema apis. Is this a fancy name for Thymol or something different?

And nowhere could I find any colony symptoms other than a very rapid death. There may be diarrhoea as in Nosema Apis, but not necessarily so. Does anyone know more about this?

[gavin]

Hi Popz

There is an open access article here by Robert Paxton: http://www.ibra.org.uk/articles/20091221

It is probably fair to say that it *might* be a serious problem but no-one is sure yet. It did cause colony losses in Spain and might have a role in CCD, but its appearance in England doesn't seem to mean that the colony is necessarily in big trouble. It is just another thing to think about if you have colonies failing to thrive. The best way to check is to look for spores in macerated abdomens of dead bees, but that would not distinguish the two Nosema species. I've recently looked at Mull bees, and couldn't find any Nosema in them.

Fumagillin comes from the fungus Aspergillus and most other countries don't permit it to be used for safety reasons.